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Steam is no longer that cheap for Australians

Fallout 4's price is dearer on Steam when compared to even physical copies

Many of you are probably already aware of this but even though Steam was a great place to buy games if you were living in Australia, it's now no longer the case, at least when it comes to many high profile and AAA titles. This is because of two big reasons I can think of:

AUD/USD Exchange Rate graph courtesy of xe.com

1. Favourable Exchange Rate

Up until the end of last year, Australians enjoyed a favourable exchange rate with the US Dollar. In fact, up until 2013 it was around parity and even in 2014 it was still around the 0.90c mark. However, that's not the case anymore and it's now around 0.70c or if you want to look at it the other way, the USD/AUD Exchange rate is about $1.40.

So during the past few years, it made sense to purchase games of Steam. Often they ended up being sometimes 50% less than the price you'd pay buying a physical copy at EB Games or JB Hi-Fi since they tend to always charge the same price for games (i.e. $70-90 for a full game, $50 for an expansion). The fact so many Australians were getting a discount thanks to the favourable exchange rate and the huge difference between prices for physical copies of games and their digital versions may have contributed to the second reason games are once again expensive for Australians...

2. The "Australia Tax"

I've noticed in the past couple of years a lot more games on Steam (especially ones from big publishers) being subject to "special" regional pricing. One such instance I've mentioned before with respect to Beyond Earth where when it was first available for pre-order on Steam the game was about $50USD but this was increased to $90USD only a few days later. Only for Australians though, which means 2K Games must've caught on to the fact that there was more money to be made from Australians if they just bumped up the price to be closer to physical copy prices. i.e. publishers charge more for Australians because they know they can get away with it. We already pay so much for everything so why contain it? s'cool!

While this was merely annoying while the Australian dollar was at parity with the US dollar it's now become highway robbery with the current exchange rate. I intend to demonstrate this by sampling the pre-order prices for a few high profile/AAA titles that are coming out in the next few months:

In the case of Fallout 4 we can see that the Steam price is over $110 AUD! Even EB Games is $20 cheaper. If you want to get the best price though, Ozgameshop is the way to go at about $60.00: that's a difference of $50 people!

Maybe 2K Games learnt their lesson when they originally released Beyond Earth on Steam and haven't applied the Australia Tax to the game's DLC – or they just haven't got around to it yet since it's still at a reasonable $37.79 AUD. You can still get it slightly cheaper from Ozgameshop though.

There's actually not many places selling the PC version of this game: only Ozgameshop and Origin. However, Origin is charging a whopping $90 USD for the game which translates to over $125 AUD! You can get it for over $50 cheaper if you decide to buy it from Ozgameshop though.

EB Games and JB Hi-Fi are also selling the PC copy of this game along with Ozgameshop and Origin. Again, Origin is charging a whopping $90 USD for the game which translates to over $125 AUD. This means EB Games and JB Hi-Fi are cheaper (for once) by about $35. Ozgameshop is the clear winner again though with only $66.99.

Ozgameshop doesn't seem to have any pre-orders for Trackmania Turbo but it's being sold on Steam, EB Games and JB Hi-Fi. In this case, the physical copies turn out cheaper, especially JB's price which seems really cheap being $20 less than EB Games and over $35 less than Steam!

Once again the physical copies trump Steam with JB Hi-Fi offering the game for over $25 less than the Steam price.

XCOM 2
EB Games price = $89.95
JB Hi-Fi = $89.00
Ozgameshop = $54.99

Curiously, there's been no pre-order price set on Steam for XCOM 2, at least for the Australian market. Currently you can only pre-order from EB Games, JB Hi-Fi and ozgameshop with ozgameshop being the clear winner at $54.99

Rainbow Six Siege seems to have the lowest price discrepancy amongst retailers. While Steam's price seems expensive it's still slightly cheaper than EB Games. JB Hi-Fi is the winner in this contest though with a price of $79 for Rainbow Six Siege.

So what do you think about the price-gouging we Australians receive? Is it warranted or do you think something should be done about it? Where do you tend to buy your games nowadays?

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